8. Seattle, USA
Smart, progressive and loaded with creative energy, Seattle is rarely out of the global spotlight. In a city that has a habit of turning homegrown ideas into international brands, Amazon is the current headline-grabber. The world’s largest online retailer has radically transformed a vast tract of the Denny Triangle neighbourhood, creating a dense business district of sleek office towers anchored by a trio of innovative glass ‘spheres’ where workers share office space with 40,000 plants. Nearby, the emblematic Space Needle has received its biggest refurb in over 50 years while, down on the waterfront, a multi-billion-dollar tunnel has replaced an ugly concrete expressway. — Best in Travel, 2019, Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet released their best places top destinations some third hyperbolic thing for 2019 and check it out, we’re number eight for cities. How nice for us. How nice for us? How nice for us! Seattle is a great city, I love living here, and yeah, you should totally visit. If I’ve got time, I’ll show you around; if I don’t, I’ll find a way to meet you for a bite somewhere, at the very least.
I like writing about Seattle and I’ve been lucky to do a fair bit of it. And because I’ve written travel, I understand outside writers see the city differently than I do. I get it. But this teaser about our city on Lonely Planet’s Top 10 Cities page made my roll my eyes so hard I hurt myself.
I’m in a petty mood today so let’s unpack this, shall we?
Smart, progressive and loaded with creative energy, Seattle is rarely out of the global spotlight.
Here in Washington State we got marriage rights and legal weed in the same year — 2001. We have a lesbian mayor and an actual commie on the city council. While Seattle isn’t the capitol of Washington State, this city is where you see our progressive side played out the most openly. Here’s to it. We’ve repeatedly ranked in the Top 10 for literacy in American cities, and as for creativity? Yeah, I guess everyone has a project. Art. Music. Theater. Whatever. Okay. Light on details but okay.
We also have the third largest homeless population in the US. Because we can’t pass a state income tax, we’re left taxing the daylights out of other things — we’re shelling out a whopping 10% in sales taxes in Seattle. No wonder we drive to Portland for shopping. Hell, just leaving the city limits gives us a discount on Kirkland brand socks and second hand jeans. We slap a whopping 15.6% on hotels and rental cars, too, thanks for spending your money here, visitors!
That bit about being “rarely out of the global spotlight…” when I travel, people still say “That’s in Canada, right?” (I WISH!) Our business leaders receive attention, but the city as an entity? I don’t know. Do we? Would I know if we did? I feel like I would know.
In a city that has a habit of turning homegrown ideas into international brands, Amazon is the current headline-grabber.
What the fuck does this even mean? Homegrown ideas like, uh, Microsoft Windows? REI — our outdoor company — is great, but they’re national, only. The legal weed I mentioned? Limited to within state borders. Boeing still builds airplanes here but the factory is in Everett, not Seattle.
As for Amazon being the headline grabber, I think that’s more about Bezos himself, the richest man this side of Pluto. His warehouse workers are notoriously underpaid and badly treated, but in a recent interview, Bezos was more interested in sending his money to space than a lot of other things, including raising worker wages. Hey, ironic call back to the idea we’re progressive because maybe, when it comes to our headline-grabbers, not so much so.
You know we have other newsmakers besides Bezos? Pramila Jayapal. Lindy West. Barbara Earl Thomas. Cecile Hanson. Look them up, Lonely Planet, they’re compelling people! Or, you know, default to our latest technocrat, that’s an option.
The world’s largest online retailer has radically transformed a vast tract of the Denny Triangle neighbourhood, creating a dense business district of sleek office towers anchored by a trio of innovative glass ‘spheres’ where workers share office space with 40,000 plants.
The spheres are a super cool architectural wonder, true. True. Turns out you can see them on a tour, twice daily, weekdays, if you can get in. Seattle’s Public Library is also an architectural wonder, you can drop in any time the doors are open. But the city’s relationship with Amazon, its thousands of square feet of real estate, and corresponding thousands of workers is, well, mixed. The not so fondly nicknamed “Amholes” have played a significant role in forcing up housing prices throughout greater Seattle and the never-ending construction in this neighborhood has contributed to atrocious traffic, pedestrian and bicycle obstacles everywhere, and coffee that just costs way too fucking much.
Also you have a lot to say about a district where yeah, you can expense a decent lunch, but come on, there are about a million more interesting things to do than hang out eavesdropping on tech employees’ conversations about their keto diets. Ugh. No.
Pioneer Square, at the other end of the city, has one of the finest collections of brick Romanesque architecture in the country, terrific dive bars, one of my favorite downtown cafes (Zeitgeist), gallery walks (now *that’s* a scene) and it offers so much more than wandering around Amazon’s ankles.
Nearby, the emblematic Space Needle has received its biggest refurb in over 50 years while, down on the waterfront, a multi-billion-dollar tunnel has replaced an ugly concrete expressway.
Full disclosure, I haven’t seen the Space Needle’s makeover. It was badly in need of one, though I admit a soft spot for outdated exhibits stumping for The Future from a 1962 point of view. The Space Needle is cool in a “Yeah, it’s been five years since I was up there last and it’s a nice day” kind of way. But it’s pretty far down the list as attractions go and for views, I’d argue you can’t beat a ferry ride back in to Seattle at dusk. It is an iconic marker of our skyline. Okay.
(Go see the Chihuly Garden and Glass down there below the Needle. It’s pricey, but it’s freaking great.)
But slow your roll, Lonely Planet! The viaduct is still standing, I rode my bike underneath it just two days ago. Our double-decker eyesore, the source of much stronger opinions than you might expect for a few miles of freeway, still separates downtown from the waterfront. So you’re simply wrong.
And as a person who’s lived in Seattle more than 20 years, I tell you what — I’ll believe the viaduct is down when it’s down and not a minute before.
Hey, Seattle is great, come for the corporate brands, stay for the developing road infrastructure!
We are so much more than bullshit corporate nonsense, even while it’s part of our urban DNA. Come because our pioneer history is bawdy as hell, full of hookers and moonshiners. Come because it’s fucking gorgeous here on the edge of Puget Sound. We’ve got impressive mountains on both sides of the city and our ecosystem, home to big-ass trees, means the air smells amazing. We’ve got all the cornerstone cultural institutions — and they’ve been improving over time! — but we also have an incredible array of subculture, uh, diversions — food, music, art, whatever you’re looking for. I often take guests for Ethiopian food, Seattle is the first place they’ve tried it, or for Vietnamese, because man, we have a lot of good Vietnamese food here. And there’s always something happening — I was at a show last weekend featuring huge stars of African music, guys who played with Peter Gabriel during peak WOMAD years (moment of hippie silence for how awesome that shit was). Our bookstores are the stuff dreams are made of — we have a newish one with A BAR DOWNSTAIRS, Third Place in Seward Park, and Elliott Bay is just the mothership of Seattle bookstores, that’s all. I got to read there and I was a bit overcome to live out this Seattle writer’s dream.
I am barely getting started! This a a very good city!
Seattle is absolutely worth a visit, you should come. You wouldn’t know reading this Lonely Planet teaser, though, would you?